


honey, there is no right way

by merrymegtargaryen



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 02:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19032844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/merrymegtargaryen
Summary: Theon and Jeyne return to the Iron Islands with Asha, where they live a quiet life of peace and healing.





	honey, there is no right way

**Author's Note:**

> Based on[this gifset](https://sansadaynes.tumblr.com/post/165602985155/asoiaf-au-theon-greyjoy-and-jeyne-poole-are), at the request of flying--forward <3

The sea air is both sharp and sweet, a balm to Theon’s many wounds. His entire body seems to breathe in the salt air, and he feels cleaner and healthier than he has since the day he met Ramsay. 

Asha takes the place beside him, peering out over the horizon. Pyke looms into view, ugly and imposing but home nonetheless. 

“Thank God,” Asha says. “I thought I’d never make it back here.”

“Neither did I,” Theon admits softly. He’d thought he’d die in Ramsay’s service. Die as Reek, not Theon. He’d been ready to die. He would have welcomed it. 

But here he is, alive and well--or as well as he’ll ever be after all he’s been through. He’s missing some fingers and toes and teeth, his hair is brittle as straw and he looks like he’s aged a hundred years, but he can get on by himself, and that’s the important thing.

“Last time I came here, I was...proud. The only living son of Balon Greyjoy and ward of Ned Stark. Robb Stark called me his brother and I made him my king. I was so sure that all of Pyke would celebrate my return, and none more so than my father.” He shakes his head. “I was a stupid boy.”

“You were,” Asha agrees in that blunt way of hers. “But you were just that: a boy. You didn’t know any better.”

“I should have.”

“Theon.” She turns fully to face him. “You must stop being so hard on yourself. You’ve done bad things in your past, yes, but you’ve more than atoned for them. That girl is safe because of you.” She nods across the deck, where Jeyne Poole is clinging to the rigging, her thin frame swaying with every lurch of the ship. 

Jeyne. She hasn’t left his side since they made for the Iron Islands. She’d held his hand the entire time she’d admitted the truth to Stannis, sobbing as she told him she was Jeyne Poole, not Arya Stark, the real Arya went missing ages ago, but Littlefinger made her play this mummer’s farce.

“If I didn’t agree, he would never let me leave the brothel,” she’d pleaded, trembling like a leaf. “He’d already whipped me and had me raped, I was so scared...please, Your Grace, I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, I didn’t know Ramsay would...I didn’t know he was...I just wanted to go home, please.”

Theon will never know what Stannis had intended to do with them, because Stannis died in battle against the Bolton bastard. With his only child dead and no other Baratheons there to lead the army, the men had either surrendered to Ramsay or tucked tails and ran for the Stormlands. There had been no trial, no retribution. Theon, Asha, and Jeyne were all forgotten, and in the absence of a gaoler, they had set themselves free. 

And now here they are, sailing for Pyke, ready to retake the Iron Islands and name Asha queen. Euron will challenge her for it, of course, but with half the Iron Fleet crossing the Narrow Sea under Victarion’s command, he won’t have much of a leg to stand on. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Asha complains. “What is it?”

He swallows. “I only...I only want her to be safe. Once she’s settled, I’ll go back to the North and--”

“You won’t,” Asha says flatly. “I need you here.  _ She _ needs you here.”

“She doesn’t.”

“She does. She hasn’t left your side once. She’s scared of everyone else; she won’t even talk to me unless you’re there. What do you think will happen if you leave?”

He hesitates. Some part of him feels that it’s better if he’s gone, that everyone would be better off without him. All he’s done is make trouble; getting Jeyne out of Winterfell is the only good thing he’s done in his life. He calls himself Theon now, but Reek will always be a part of him, and isn’t she better off without Reek? Isn’t she better off without the reminder of Ramsay and the horrible things he did to her?

_ But she has no one else. _ She has no family, no friends except for him. If he leaves her, she’ll truly have no one left. As kind as Asha is to her, the ironborn are hard men, and even the gentlest among them is not gentle enough for a girl like Jeyne. She needs someone to be at her side always.

“She needs you,” Asha says again. “And I need you. You’re my brother. You were taken from me when we were children, and nothing can ever change that, but let’s live in peace together. Euron and Victarion aren’t my family, not really, and Mother...she hasn’t been the same since our brothers died. You’re all I have left, Theon.” 

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “What would I do?”

“Live,” she says sharply. “I don’t care how you do it. You can live on Pyke with me, sleep in a lord’s chamber and wear fine clothes. You can live in a hut on the beach and catch crabs in your nets and let me visit you when I need advice. Whatever you want, Theon. Only say you’ll stay here and live.”

His eyes find Jeyne again, still swaying, still clinging dearly to the rigging. There’s a strength in her that no one will ever know about, he thinks. They think her a small, stupid girl, but she’s so much more than that. She never forgot who she was, never gave up on Jeyne Poole. 

And he won’t either. 

“I will.”

Asha smiles, her face clearing. “Good.”

The far-eyes calls out and the  _ Sea Bitch _ makes towards the harbor. Asha grins, clapping Theon on the shoulder.

“Welcome home, little brother.”

.

Taking back the Iron Islands is surprisingly easy; Euron left no men on the islands, assuming that Asha was too deep in the North to get back and try to claim the Seastone Chair. Without any of his men to defend the Iron Islands, there is no army to fend off Asha, no one to resist. Euron will come for them someday, but for now, the islands are theirs. 

Asha offers Theon a lord’s chamber in the keep, a big room with clean rushes and a roaring fire. The bed is wide and soft, stuffed with feathers and covered with linen sheets. After months spent sleeping on the dirty floor of a kennel surrounded by dogs, Theon hardly knows how to sleep on a bed. Sometimes he curls up on the rushes under the window, listening to the howl of wind and the crash of waves against rock. 

Jeyne finds him like that late one night. She’s barefoot and trembling, always trembling. 

“What are you doing on the floor?” she asks in confusion.

“Sleeping,” he says, feeling foolish. In his mind’s eye, he can see Ramsay’s sneer.

“Why don’t you sleep on the bed?”

“It’s too soft.”

Something almost like a smile touches her lips. “Never heard anyone complain about that before.”

He sits up. “What are you doing here?”

She bites her lip. She still has all her teeth, and all her beauty. Ramsay had been sure to keep her face pretty, both for his sake and the northern lords’. The rest of her, though…

He’s seen her naked. He knows about the whip marks on her back, the teeth marks on her breasts. He knows that there are scars that will never heal, on her flesh and in her mind. But looking down at him like this, she looks normal. Unharmed. She could still have a normal life someday. Mayhap even find a husband and bear children, and when they ask about the scars on her back, she can just say, “It happened a long time ago.”

“I can’t sleep,” she says now. 

He doesn’t know what to do with that. They slept in the hold together the ship ride here, so he knows she has nightmares. How can she not? But they’ve been in Pyke near a fortnight, and this is the first time she’s come to him with this complaint.

“What do you want me for?” he asks.

She bites her lip again. “I thought...maybe I could sleep beside you?”

Sleep. Beside  _ him _ . Reek.

_ Not Reek, Theon, _ he corrects himself. He isn’t Reek anymore. And he doesn’t. Reek, that is. He takes baths now, and sleeps in a real bed without any dogs, and when he’s dirtied his clothes a servant takes them to the laundress for washing. There’s no reason she shouldn’t sleep beside him. He isn’t even a man anymore, isn’t a threat to her safety. 

“You can say no,” she says quickly, cheeks flushing. “I only...I’d feel better...if you were there.”

To protect her.  _ We flew. _

“Alright,” he says, his voice rougher than he means it to be. He pushes himself up on aching limbs and climbs into his bed, scooting all the way to the edge so that she has plenty of room to stretch out.

She doesn’t need it; as soon as she gets under the covers, she curls up in a little ball. She reminds him of a fawn he found sleeping in the Wolfswood once, small and quiet and utterly helpless. 

He lies awake for a long time that night, unable to sleep on the soft bed, unable to sleep with Jeyne right beside him. They aren’t even touching, and her breath is soft and light, but she’s  _ there _ , and it’s all he can think about. 

.

When he wakes in the morning, she’s still sleeping primly beside him, tucked up into herself. He lies there for a long moment, watching her look more peaceful than she has since she was a young girl who thought only of songs and handsome knights. 

The sun is streaming through the shutters by the time she wakes. It takes her a long time, blinking and yawning and stretching, but finally she looks over at him and smiles through half-opened eyes. 

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he returns, clearing his throat when he hears how rough it is. “How did you sleep?” he adds, as if he hadn’t watched and heard her for hours. 

“Very well. You?”

“I...I slept alright,” he lies. 

She smiles “Thank you for letting me sleep beside you. I felt...safe.”

“I...good. I’m...I’m glad,” he fumbles. 

She pushes back the covers. “I should get dressed.”

She’s nearly to the door when a strangled sound comes from his lips. “Jeyne?”

She looks back at him.

“Do you want to play cyvasse?”

She smiles in response.

.

They sit at the table he never uses, moving tiles across the board. Jeyne sits cross-legged in her nightgown, looking at the board with intense concentration. Serving maids set down a breakfast tray, and Theon mumbles his thanks. He doesn’t often order food up to his room, hating the idea of being an imposition on anyone, but it’s different with Jeyne here. The serving maids bring them a mountain of food, toast and porridge and kippers and bacon, with hardy brown ale to drink. 

Jeyne eats delicately, wiping her fingers off on her napkin before moving her tiles. She’s winning, but that’s no surprise; Theon has never been good at cyvasse. He’s never really liked the game, finding riding or hunting or sparring much more entertaining, but when Jeyne had started to leave this morning, he’d suddenly felt desperate to keep her with him. He can’t explain it, not really, only that he was suddenly afraid of being left alone and she was the only person in the world who’d make that fear fade away. 

_ It’s because she understands me. _ Asha knows the truth, of course, and most of her men have pieced together that he was tortured and abused by Ramsay, but only Jeyne knows the full extent of it. Only Jeyne saw the things Ramsay did to him, and only he saw the things Ramsay did to her. 

_ Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with pain. _

“Got you,” Jeyne declares, and when he looks at the board, he sees that she’s won the game.

“Another?” he asks, his stiff fingers moving to rearrange the tiles.

She glances out the window. It’s late in the morning now; they’ve spent two hours hunched over the cyvasse board. The porridge and kippers are cold and the ale is lukewarm. 

“We’ve been here a long time,” she says hesitantly.

Theon shrugs. “We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Jeyne looks disappointed, and he realizes that this was the wrong thing to say. 

“I know. I just feel...trapped here, sometimes.”

Of course. Ramsay kept her a prisoner in her own room, even had guards stationed outside her door to make sure she never left. She wants to be free. 

“What do you want to do? There isn’t much, but I could show you the island.”

Her face clears. “Would you?”

“Yes. Go get dressed and I’ll meet you in the stables.”

She scrambles out of her chair, eager to comply. She looks so like a child, dashing from his room in her bare feet. She  _ is _ still a child, he remembers. Just because she’s been wedded and bedded doesn’t mean she isn’t the young girl he knew at Winterfell. 

.

In truth, Theon hasn’t left the keep’s walls since arriving in Pyke. He’s been reluctant to let the Iron Islanders see him. The only living son of Balon Greyjoy, a shell of a man now. That’s if they even recognize him, and hopefully they won’t. 

Jeyne meets him at the stables, wearing a coarse dress of dark green and boots laced up high on her leg. They don’t keep many horses on Pyke, so Theon takes an ancient nag and Jeyne takes a shabby-looking gelding. The horses don’t like to run, but that suits Theon fine. 

He shows Jeyne the island of Pyke, what little there is to be seen. Pieces from his childhood come rushing back: the place where he and Asha liked to spar, the glade where Maron put a bow in his hands, the farm where he saw a cow delivered of her calf. All these pieces of home come back to him, and he feels an odd sort of homesickness even though he’s right here. He longs for the days he was a boy again, when he was the youngest son of Balon Greyjoy and not the only one left, when his mother was herself and not a woman who only looked like his mother, when he had older brothers who laughed at him and with him.

But those days are long gone. 

.

The last place he takes her to is the beach. They hobble the horses and sit on the rocks, watching ships pass on the horizon. It feels oddly peaceful, watching other people live their lives. 

“Does it feel strange?” Jeyne asks. “To be back here?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“It felt strange to be back in Winterfell,” she confides. “When I was pretending to be Arya. I thought it would be nice to be home, but...it wasn’t.”

_ Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with pain. _

“Is the water cold?”

“Probably.”

She starts unlacing her boots. “I want to find out.”

He watches as she pulls off her boots and unrolls her stockings. If he looks closely, he can see thin strips of scars up and down her calves. She slides one foot into the water and squeaks, withdrawing it quickly. 

“Cold?” 

“Yes.” She waits a moment and then plunges her entire leg into the water, all the way up to the knee. She does the same with the other leg. Even beneath the surface, he can see her pale legs, oddly distorted by the water. 

A sudden thought occurs to him, and though it’s wicked, it fills him with something close to giddiness. He edges towards her, and while she’s still kicking her legs, trying to acclimate to the water, he pushes her in.

She lets out a shriek, popping up before she’s fully submerged. The water only comes to her waist, but her dress is soaked. She looks shocked, but when she sees the smile on Theon’s face, she splashes him. “Theon, you ass!”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, but the smile’s still on his face. 

Jeyne wades forward and tugs on his legs. He lets her, falling into the water with a plop. It feels oddly comforting, the saltwater.  _ Saltwater runs through our veins, and only a true ironborn draws breath after being drowned in it. _

He doesn’t want to say that they  _ play _ in the water, because that makes it sound as if they’re children, but in a way, they do. Play. They swim and splash and laugh, and when they’re both exhausted he lifts her back onto the rock and rolls her stockings up her legs before lacing up her boots. She watches him with soft eyes, and when he finishes, he climbs back onto shore and they head for home.

.

He wakes that night to Jeyne standing over him again.

“Can I sleep beside you again?” she asks.

The bed is soft, but not so unbearable tonight, and even though Jeyne is beside him, he sleeps a little easier. In the morning, they play cyvasse while the servants bring them breakfast, and after, they go riding on the island again. When they come to the beach, Jeyne strips down to her shift before wading into the water, teeth chattering but determined nonetheless.

“You’ll freeze,” he tells her even as he pulls off his boots.

“I’m from the North,” she dismisses. 

She is from the North, born and bred to it. Pyke is his home, and the cold is hers; it’s in her blood as much as iron is in his. 

He leaves on his tunic, loath to let her see the mess of scars on his body. He’s seen every inch of her, he knows, but that had been different, somehow. Whatever Littlefinger and Ramsay had done to her, they hadn’t wanted to disfigure her. They’d wanted to keep her pretty.

Ramsay had had no such misgivings about Theon.

_ Reek. _

_ Reek, Reek, it rhymes with freak. _

His body is a mangled mess of burned, branded, cut, and scarred flesh, knit poorly together over his bones. He won’t subject Jeyne to that.

Instead, he wades out into the water with her, his stiff limbs pushing against the current. It feels right, in a way few things do these days. This is where he belongs. Not in the room in Pyke, not in a featherbed too soft for his bones. Here, in the water, the home of the Drowned God. 

.

It becomes a routine for them. They sleep beside each other at night, spend their mornings playing cyvasse and their afternoons riding and swimming. It gets to where he doesn’t mind sleeping in his bed anymore, where he actually can’t sleep until Jeyne is there beside him. He becomes so used to her there, always by his side, like a part of him he didn’t know he was missing until now.

He isn’t the only one to notice this.

“You seem...happier,” Asha notes over dinner one night. He’s had to cut his meat into little pieces to make it easier to chew, and he swallows with effort now.

“Do I?”

She nods over the rim of her cup. “Not...happy, exactly, but...happier.”

“I suppose I am,” he allows.

“You know what I think it is?”

He shrugs.

“That girl. Jeyne.”

He lowers his head. “She’s my friend.”

“She’s your only friend.” Asha hesitates. “Neither of you likes it here. In Pyke. You don’t talk to anyone. You spend all day with each other, locked up in your room or riding on the island.”

“We...understand each other.”

Asha nods sadly. “I know.” She hesitates again. “Theon, I’ve had word that Euron is sailing back here. He wants to reclaim the Iron Islands. There will be a battle, and I don’t have enough men to guarantee I’ll win.”

He looks at her in surprise. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, if Euron wins...he’ll want you dead. You’re the last living son of Balon Greyjoy. You won’t be safe. And Jeyne won’t be either.”

He feels queasy. “What do you want me to do?”

She leans forward, looking intently at him. “Build a hut on the beach you like so much and live there. You and Jeyne can live as quietly as you like and never talk to another person if you don’t want to. Euron won’t think to look for you in a fisherman’s hut. You could live the rest of your days in peace, just you and Jeyne.”

It sounds wonderful. Just him and Jeyne, living in a hut big enough for the two of them and nothing else, alone and away from everyone else.

But…

“If you win…”

“Then you can stay in the damn hut for all I care. I’ll visit you once in a while and bore you with my company.”

That sounds wonderful, too. Just him and Jeyne and sometimes Asha. 

“Alright,” he decides.

.

He mentions it to Jeyne that night when she climbs into bed beside him. She’s stopped asking by now and just does it. He finds he doesn’t mind. 

She sits up when he tells her about Asha’s suggestion, looking down at him. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” he says bluntly. “Is that something you could want?”

She nods. “Yes. Just us and the ocean. No one to bother us or…” Her voice trembles. “Hurt us.”

“No one will hurt us,” he promises. 

.

Building a hut is not easy work, but Theon doesn’t mind, and Jeyne seems happy to help. They build it out of mud and stones and make a roof of wood beams and thatch. It isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. 

There’s a bed inside, a mattress stuffed with goose feathers (he finds he doesn’t mind soft beds so much anymore) in the corner by the fire, and there’s a table with two mismatched chairs, both of noticeably different heights. Jeyne thinks it’s funny and insists that the chairs give the place “character”. 

Always skilled with sewing and weaving, and because Theon’s fingers are so stiff, Jeyne weaves nets that they both use to catch fish. He likes watching her tuck her dress up around her thighs, allowing her to wade into the water and lure fish and crabs into her net. They spend hours in the cove outside their hut, catching what they can. 

On stormy days, or if they’ve had a profitable morning, they sit inside and play cyvasse. Jeyne always beats him, and he never minds. Sometimes, she goes to the market, coming back with bread and cheese and vegetables, as their own garden is slow in coming. Sometimes she brings back news. Ramsay Snow killed his father and his pregnant stepmother. Jon Snow was killed and brought back to life by the Red Woman, and now he marches on Winterfell with Northerners and wildlings at his back. 

It feels odd to hear her talk about these people and places he once knew. They sound so far away, like figures in a story. 

Was Winterfell ever real? Was Ramsay Snow, and Jon? 

Was Reek?

.

They’re in bed one night, lulled to sleep by the crash of waves against shore, when a different kind of crash rouses them from their slumber. 

“Wait here,” Theon says, his bones aching in the cold, damp night. He pulls on his boots and cloak before going outside, looking out into the night.

He has to climb the hill, up to the cliffs for which Pyke is so well known, before he can see the cause of the commotion. 

Where the sea of stars ends, a bright fire burns. In the glow of its flames, Theon can see ships, dozens of them, all flying the kraken sigil.

_ Euron, _ he realizes. Euron is here, finally come to reclaim the Iron Islands.

But there is an obvious brawl on the ships, and that can only mean that Asha has sailed out to meet him. He stands for a long time, watching and wondering who on earth is winning.

Jeyne comes up beside him, her own cloak wrapped around her. He reaches out an arm, drawing her against his side. 

“You should be in bed.”

“I was worried when you didn’t come back.” Her brown eyes glitter in the distant firelight. “So he’s here.”

“Aye. He’s here.”

He hasn’t forgotten what Asha told him. If Euron wins, he’ll want Theon dead. It’s unlikely he’d find Theon; even if someone knew where he’d gone and told Euron, how likely would he be to recognize his nephew? The boy he once knew is a white-haired man now. 

But still. There’s always a chance, and it’s one he can’t take; not with Jeyne. 

.

The battle ends just as the first golden streaks of dawn light the sky. Broken and battered ships drift out to sea, and the fire slowly dies out. Theon watches and waits, wondering when he’ll know who won the battle. Will Jeyne go to market and bring back the news? Will Euron come to Theon’s door and slit his throat?

But as it turns out, he need not worry, for the cry rises up over the water, up to the tops of the cliffs. 

_ “Asha! Queen Asha!” _

Jeyne looks up at Theon, beaming. “She did it.”

“She did.” He’s filled with elation, and without thinking, he swoops down to kiss her. 

Jeyne is still for a long moment, and Theon draws back, ashamed of himself. What had gotten into him? 

“I’m sorry--”

She shakes her head, reaching up to touch his chin. “Do it again.”

He hesitates, but her face is tipped up towards his, expectant, so he leans down and kisses her again. This time, she is not still; she responds in kind, her lips moving against his. Her fingers curl in the hair at the nape of his neck, gentle but eager, and his hands find purchase around her waist. 

When they draw apart at long last, the sky is filled with morning light. He smiles at her--a real smile, a  _ true _ smile--and she smiles back, and everything feels right with the world. 


End file.
